


Drive

by fhsa_archivist



Category: Smallville
Genre: Angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2003-12-31
Updated: 2003-12-31
Packaged: 2019-02-05 18:08:37
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,663
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12799566
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fhsa_archivist/pseuds/fhsa_archivist
Summary: Post Rosetta - Lex remembers what's really important.





	Drive

**Author's Note:**

> Note from Haven, the archivist: This story was originally archived at [Fandom Haven Story Archive (FHSA)](http://fanlore.org/wiki/Fandom_Haven_Story_Archive), was scheduled to shut down at the end of 2016. To preserve the archive, I began working with the OTW to transfer the stories to the AO3 as an Open Doors-approved project in November 2017. If you are this creator and the work hasn't transferred to your AO3 account, please contact me using the e-mail address on [Fandom Haven Story Archive collection profile](http://archiveofourown.org/collections/fhsa/profile).

*** *** ***

 

DRIVE

 

It had been late afternoon when Clark called him, asking if they could go somewhere, anywhere, and do something, anything. The tone in Clark's voice was something that Lex hadn't heard before in his young friend. Lex dropped what he was working on and took the BMW Z8 to pick him up. Clark's parents had been somewhat less than mollified by the excuse of showing off the new car but in the end, Clark had slid into the passenger's seat with no clear promise of when he'd return.

 

Hours later Metropolis slipped into the headlights as the purple hues of dusk darkened and absorbed the landscape. Coldplay filtered through Bose speakers, not necessarily the kind of music that Lex listened to but he'd bought it after Clark mentioned the group one night at the Talon. The music fit the night, it fit right now. Clark had asked him to leave the top down and the heater worked furiously to pump out a thick cocoon of heat. It wrapped the floorboards in a warm blanket that was ripped away by the constant rush of air passing over the car. 

 

Clark sailed his palm along the currents created by the BMW's passing, dipping or rising with the slightest shift of his hand. Air slipped into his sleeve, cold and biting. An unseasonably warm winter night in one of the Plains states, the temperatures hung suspended in the low 50's for the moment but promised to drop with the setting sun. The night sky was clear and boundless. Lex shivered despite the heavy coat he wore, studying the endless dark asphalt stretched out before them. The cold didn't get to Clark but Lex knew he should probably insist on putting the top up. He would, he decided, first time they stopped. Clark closed his eyes and sank a little further into the soft leather of the seat, exhaling audibly as he did.

 

"I take it you approve," Lex surmised, mistaking the sigh for a sign of appreciation. 

 

Clark didn't correct him. 

 

"Well, you know, if it's the best you can do," he goaded without any real enthusiasm, dismissing Lex's comment with a blind shrug. He turned his face, eyes still closed, into the rush of air flowing past them.

 

With his eyes closed Clark looked, if it were possible, even more exquisite. 

 

"It's the best $135,000 can do anyway," Lex commented mostly to himself, pulling his attention away from the troubled teenager beside him. He quietly let go of a long breath. It bothered him to see Clark this quiet. "Was there anywhere in particular you wanted to go?" he said louder.

 

Clark shook his head. "No, I just didn't want to be there anymore, you know? For just a little while I wanted to be - " he hesitated, " - just here."

 

"Where?"

 

"Here," he repeated cryptically.

 

"You wanted to be on a poorly maintained state highway, just past mile marker..." Lex squinted, trying to make out the small green sign in the dark. It slipped by too quickly. "Something," he shrugged. He wasn't being obtuse. He wanted Clark to get whatever was bothering him off his chest.

 

"No, I want to be here; it doesn't matter where that is."

 

"Where is here, Clark?" he pressed softly.

 

After a long moment of silence Clark finally answered. "Wherever you are."

 

"Then you'll never have to go far."

 

 

*** *** ***

 

 

Lex pulled into the parking lot of a roadside eatery after passing up several convenience stores in search of coffee. Clark got out to stretch his legs, declining the offer to go inside. 

 

"Then 'to go' it is," Lex smiled. "Do you want anything?"

 

"Whatever you get..." Clark shrugged. 

 

When Lex returned Clark was leaning his hips against the front fender of the car, his back to the restaurant. He stared toward the distant Kansas landscape, flat and endless. He was looking toward Smallville, toward home.

 

"What are you thinking?" Lex asked quietly as he approached the car.

 

Clark flexed, a contained movement, muscle against muscle. He turned and smiled. "Hey."

 

"What were you thinking, just now?" Lex asked again.

 

Clark laughed at some internal joke. "I wasn't thinking, I was wishing."

 

"What were you wishing?"

 

"That you and I were the only two people in the world tonight, that the sun wouldn't come up, that we'd never run out of road."

 

Lex walked around the front of the extravagant car and sat next to Clark, handing over one of the cups. 

 

"I can't stop the sun, and, no matter which direction you head, sooner or later you're gonna run into an ocean; but right now, we are the only two people on earth," he promised. 

 

Clark smiled, glancing at the lights of the eatery with a sad expression that confused Lex.

 

"What is it, Clark? Is it the sleepwalking, the blacking out, is something wrong? Will you please talk to me?" 

 

Clark shifted his gaze to Lex. For the first time, Lex saw how tired Clark looked. The glaring florescent lights made the shadows under his eyes as harsh as the shadows within them. He looked mentally exhausted, and Lex knew no amount of sleep would ever bring him peace from that. 

 

"Wanna tell me what's going on?"

 

Clark set the styrofoam cup down next to him on the car. He reached over and covered Lex's hand with his own. He leaned toward him and it was the most natural thing in the world to brush his mouth across the pale lips, the briefest of touches. He pulled back and studied Lex's face, finding nothing but acceptance there. Clark stood and moved in front of the man who had been his best friend. 

 

But Clark wanted something else, something so much more. 

 

He brushed the backs of his fingers across Lex's cheek and traced a trail down the other with his fingertips. He cupped Lex's face and turned it up to him, staring directly into Lex's eyes. Clark closed his eyes and went on touch alone, dragging his open mouth across the skin at the corner of Lex's eye and pressing kisses along the cheekbone. Lex waited, lips parted. Clark closed his mouth around Lex's upper lip, sucking gently before tasting the rougher sensation of the scar that defined the center of Lex's mouth. He kissed the flaw that so beautifully marred the perfect skin. He'd always thought the single imperfection denounced the consummate facade Lex presented to the world and made him attainable, human. 

 

Made him someone Clark could love. And be loved by.

 

The cup fell from Lex's hand to asphalt and the impact forced the plastic lid off. Bitter coffee splashed across his expensive slacks and shoes while the lid rolled away unseen.

 

Lex closed his eyes and drank Clark in by touch and taste, letting the musky flavor of skin, and sweat, and new car leather, and a thousand other things mingle and create a new memory. The one he would hold deeply and take out on long nights spent alone in the future. But for now...

 

Clark's arms were around him, his forearms trapping Lex's shoulders, his fingers pressing into bare scalp and Lex lay his face against that wide expanse of chest and breathed. Clark pulled him back up and then his mouth was at Lex's lips again, insistent and delicious, waiting for Lex to open up to him. 

 

Lex didn't disappoint him. The instant he parted his lips, Clark slipped his tongue between them, tasting teeth and palate and tongue. Clark kept kissing him, all energy and little finesse, as though he'd never get enough, as though he'd never quit. Lex buried his hands in the dark curls and held on. After an entirely too-short eternity, Lex felt him pull back, a separation that had little to do with proximity or distance. Clark pressed his face to Lex's neck. 

 

"Can we go home?" His voice was muffled by the collar of Lex's coat.

 

Lex's wordless answer was to stand and usher Clark back to the passenger seat. He slid behind the wheel and turned the engine over, directing the car back onto the road. He turned south, toward the only home Clark had ever known.

 

 

*** *** ***

 

 

"Mr. Kent." He waited for the outburst.

 

It wasn't long in coming. "Lex. Where's Clark?" 

 

"He's here at the mansion; he's sleeping."

 

"I'll be right there."

 

"I'd like you to allow him to stay for the rest of the night," Lex chose his words carefully. "I'll see to it he gets home in the morning."

 

"I want my son home now, Lex. "

 

"And I can appreciate that, Mr. Kent, but I think we both know that Clark will only stay there if he chooses to. He's sleeping, and frankly I don't think he's done that in a long time. Please, Mr. Kent, I'm asking you to let him stay."

 

Jonathan swallowed. Lex could almost hear him through the phone.

 

"All right, Lex. But I want him home tomorrow morning." Jonathan's tone brooked no argument.

 

"You have my word, Mr. Kent. Goodnight."

 

Lex closed the connection and turned the cell phone off, leaving it on a table in the hallway. Helen was in Metropolis for the week and none of his employees would even mention Clark's having been there, let alone his sleeping in the master bedroom. Lex opened the door quietly, taking the armchair near the fireplace. From where he sat he faced Clark, fast asleep beneath a pile of down-filled comforters and summer quilts. The french doors were open, letting in the cold of the night air. His brandy glass sat undisturbed on the hearth, gradually warming from the fire. Lex reached over for it, swirling the amber liquid through the prism of expensive cut-crystal. He sipped and savored the slow burn that spread outward from his stomach.

 

Answers were for later. All his questions, his doubts, would wait for another time. For now the only thing that remained immediate, that was important, was Clark. 

 

 

exeunt


End file.
